


Things Made by Effort

by fuck_you_kylo



Category: Winternight Series - Katherine Arden
Genre: F/M, First Time, Light D/s, takes place in chapter 8 of The Girl in the Tower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:02:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22379917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuck_you_kylo/pseuds/fuck_you_kylo
Summary: An innocent knife-fighting lesson gets a little out of hand.
Relationships: Morozko/Vasilisa Petrovna
Comments: 10
Kudos: 61





	Things Made by Effort

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anysia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anysia/gifts).



Morozko was always in charge, in these situations. He set the terms, he bedded the maiden, he granted the rewards, and he sent her home. He had completed the same transaction a thousand times, and practice made it predictable and tidy. But not with her. Due to a series of events that had spun wildly out of his control, Morozko found himself teaching Vasilia Petrovna how to fight with a knife. 

Depending on how one looked at it, it had been either several days of practice, or only a moment. They took breaks only to allow her to drink a bowl of soup or gnaw on a hunk of black bread with cheese or berries while Morozko sat across from her, watching over the fire. Her dowry, a gift from him, lay mostly forgotten in his house in the fir grove, to his confusion and annoyance. On the other hand, she was thrilled by good food, so he kept giving her that. It was easy enough to do. He tried not to be touched by her delight in the simplest things he provided. 

Vasya’s skill with the knife grew apace, and before long the winter king sharpened his focus on her movements and stopped pulling his punches. She was fearless as a fighter, as with everything else, and her moves were bold and hard to predict. 

“Remember slow is smooth, smooth is fast. If you keep rushing like that, you’ll get yourself killed,” Morozko said as he parried her attack and riposted. 

“That would make your life easier, would it not?” she asked. 

“Really? You have a poor memory,” he said, biting back his anger.

“Dragging me back to life at the last possible second, yes, I remember well. Thank you for that. You would have dragged me all the way back to Lesnaya Zemlya if I had allowed it. Back to a husband,” she said, advancing on him again, “or a convent, but either way, you would have done well to let me die.” 

“What would you have me do, Vasya?” he said. His anger had eroded into hurt, but he covered it up with a merciless strike to her shoulder, which she blocked. “This is not the place for you.” 

“There is no place for me! Not anymore.” With that, Vasya slashed recklessly at the air near him, forcing him back against a tree. Before Morozko could recover himself, she had pinned him there with her blade at this throat and her thigh slotted between his legs. When he met her eyes, he could see the fire of wild triumph blazing there, that untamed pride that endeared and frustrated him by turns. The breath left his lungs. She blinked, a brief flicker in her confidence, and he knew then that she could feel him, hard, against her leg. They both hesitated. Then she kissed him, tentatively at first, still holding him up against the wall with her ice-blue blade at his neck and her bony hips pressing into his. Morozko returned it, deepening the kiss until the press of the knife made cold water trickle down into the hollow of his throat. She was the one to pull back and speak first. 

“Do you--”

“Yes,” he said.

“Come, then,” she said, and lowered her knife. She took his cold hand and led him to the quickly wished-for bed that wasn’t quite a bed, and it was wrong. It was all wrong. He was not supposed to feel anything this keenly. His hand was not supposed to tremble for wanting. Before, any desire was fulfilled as soon as he decided he wished it, and wishing never got the chance to evolve into wanting. It was new, and it was overwhelming.

“Don’t be afraid,” Morozko said, partly to himself.

“I’m not,” she said sharply, but he could still see traces of fear in her expression as well. He laid her down on the large snowdrift bed and helped her off with the rough boy’s clothes she had been wearing. He had barely noticed it earlier, when he was focused on healing her frostbite, but her skin was smooth and soft. He kissed his way down her body until he found the source of the heat that was coming off her in waves, and he set his cool tongue to work. 

“What are you doing?” she asked, startled.

“Do you not trust me, Vasilia Petrovna?” he said drily. She said nothing. He continued with his task, rubbing circles into her hips with his thumbs as he went, and soon Vasya was making sounds of surprised pleasure and grasping at his hair. She tasted as sweet and crisp as he had imagined, like the faintest scent of a freshly mowed field that sometimes reached him in deepest summer, when he was scarcely himself. Morozko never knew if this activity was something mortal men didn’t do, or if mothers simply didn’t tell their daughters about it. Regardless, the delicious shock made it a favorite of his. He let her pleasure build to a near-crescendo, then backed off to kiss the sensitive skin where her leg joined her body, then built her up again. It felt like an act of creation, something as real and tangible as one of his carvings, and brought with it the same joy and satisfaction. When at last he chose to allow it, Vasya peaked with a stunned cry and tightened her thighs around his face. She leaned up on her elbows, breathing hard, and stared at Morozko as if seeing him for the first time. 

“I did not know I could do that. Was that magic?”

“Of a sort,” he smiled. He forgot that he was still fully dressed, and so he was not. Vasya always twitched when he altered something by his wish, but this time was different. The way she looked at him, her mouth slightly open, with desire and challenge in her eyes, was more like an unbroke filly than a well-bred country maiden. But Morozko had never been one to break a horse. He lay down next to her, and brushed the loose strands of hair back from her face before kissing her again. As he moved to shift on top of her, she stopped him. 

“I would prefer to be on top, I think,” she said. 

“A maiden with preferences!” he said sardonically, gathering all his remaining self-control to conceal how much the idea affected him. “As you will.”

He flipped over onto his back and Vasya swung a leg over to straddle him. With only the slightest hesitation, she guided him into herself and gasped at the sensation. Morozko’s breath hitched. He kept a guiding hand on her hip and watched carefully to see that she was not in pain, but there was no blood and she gave no sign of discomfort. After taking a moment to adjust she started slowly riding him, running her hands up and down his torso, taking in his body with open admiration. Her hand paused over his heart, as if to make sure it was really there. Her movements quickened and she experimented moving up and down, now side to side, now circling her hips, trying out each with the same focus and interest that she would devote to a new and savory food. Morozko watched her reactions, her eyes fluttering shut, her head tilting back, grasping at his chest or his shoulder or his arm. His touch was gentle, tracing her outlines with his fingers and feeling the soft strength of her hips and thighs. She bared her neck for him and he caressed the line of her jaw, releasing the tension she was holding there. She moved with the uncanny grace of a willow tree bowing in the winter wind, every bit the force of nature that he was. 

Morozko stared at her in wonder, all his pretenses forgotten. Never before had a maiden taken such unrestrained delight in him. It was intoxicating. She ground her hips down and moaned as she climaxed a second time. It was not the type of perfect moan performed for a man; it was a wild, artless near-sob, overfull with desire and confusion and newness. Morozko felt overfull, too. His instinct was to gather her up in his arms and keep her contained and comforted. But without even pausing for breath, she leaned down to pin his wrists against the bed, and he let her. He would let her do anything she wanted. 

Though he longed to reach up and touch her again, he wanted to obey her even more, so he kept his hands over his head and did not resist her grip. Under her gaze, Morozko felt himself growing perilously real. The talisman he had given her bounced on her breastbone, glowing bright with the strength of their connection. Now, utterly undone and frightened by it, he felt the reciprocal cost of binding a living soul to himself. But it was freeing, in a way, to give himself over to her desires, and it made his own pleasure speed toward the inevitable. 

“Vasya,” he panted. “Please, I need--”

“Very well, Winter King,” Vasya said, breathless, and let his wrists go. Morozko quickly pulled her down to his chest and held her close, crying out into her shoulder as he released. She hung onto him through it and kissed his neck until his breathing quieted. He buried his cool fingers in her loosened plait and spoke softly in her ear, “Is all well with you, Vasya?”

“Yes,” she said. She settled back at his side and stroked his hair. “And with you?” 

Morozko was not sure how to begin to categorize it. He would rather say nothing than try to. Instead he said, “Cover up, or you will get cold.” He pulled a wolfskin up over them both and gathered her close to him again, willing his skin to stay warm enough that he wouldn’t chill the sheen of sweat on her. Vasya let him tend to her, but he could sense her thoughts forming before she spoke.

“I suppose you are overwhelmed, too.” 

“Yes,” he admitted, grateful that she was the one to say it. 

“I always thought, because of the stories--” she started, but he interrupted her. 

“It was nothing like this.” 

She did not press him further, just settled into his arms. Sleep was part of his dominion, but nothing he could use for himself. But when he closed his eyes with his nose in her hair, he felt almost as if he could. Her scent calmed him. After a short while lying in the cold quiet, the fire still crackling nearby, Vasya propped herself up on one elbow. 

“I have a question.” 

“Go ahead,” Morozko said, without opening his eyes.

“Did you choose your appearance? Could you look different if you wanted to?” 

“Do you wish I looked different?” he said, frowning slightly.

“No,” Vasya said quickly. “I ask because I like it, and I thought maybe you shaped yourself to what I would like.” 

“I see,” he said, amused. “Yes, I have some control over my appearance, but not that much. I shift according to the season and what role is required of me.” He paused. “And the white mare also has a say; she prefers a rider who is easy to carry.”

Vasya laughed. “She would have my brothers off. Except maybe Sasha.” 

“She would,” Morozko agreed. It was easy like this, possibly the easiest conversation they had ever had. It was with regret that he remembered the final step of the process, a rather time-sensitive matter that he knew Vasya would care about. He had given up trying to dissuade her from her foolish dream of exploring the world, but the thought of her out there alone and with child was too painful and terrifying for him to imagine. Still, he felt his old secrecy creeping back in. It was a force of habit, even for something he had no possible reason to conceal. 

“I have to leave. If I return later tonight, will you still be here?” he asked, wary. He was prepared for a fight on this point, if necessary.

But instead she said, “Yes, if you’ll have me for one more night. I can leave in the morning.” He dressed himself, by hand this time, and leaned down to kiss her one more time. He cursed himself for his sentimentality over leaving.

The white mare instantly noted his state of disarray, but a pointed finger and a stern warning silenced her admonitions. 

* * *

Morozko returned shortly after dark with a leather bag filled with stalk-like plants with tiny yellow flowers. The long ride had helped restore his composure. He built the fire back up, then pulled out the plants and breathed on them, drying them out instantly. Vasya, wrapped tightly in her cloak, watched him curiously from the log she was sitting on. He returned her glance but said nothing. The space between them felt loaded, somehow, far from the easy openness of lying in bed together earlier. If she felt any worry or regret, he hoped this last gift he brought would ease it. He heated water over the fire, then crumbled in the dried herbs and handed the hot drink to her in a silver tankard.

“What is this?” she asked.

“I do not think you want to have a child right now, traveler,” he said. 

“Oh. Thank you,” she said, and took a sip. He only nodded. “And thank you for...everything else, as well. You’ve been very kind to me, and I was ungrateful.” She rushed out the last part, as if embarrassed. Morozko’s heart flamed. 

“If you want to be on the road, the least I can do is prepare you,” he said, and reached over to pull the talisman out from her loose tunic. She wrapped the cloak back around herself. 

“You’ve fought me enough on it,” she said, her tone reverting from its earlier tenderness. 

“I do not understand your desire to put yourself in danger. But if that is what you want, I will not try to stop you anymore.” 

“You do understand, though.” Her green eyes locked onto his. He imagined her, veiled and locked in a cloister with no domoviye to comfort her, or bound into submission to some bearish, politically convenient minor lord, mending his clothes and carrying his children, all the wildness beaten out of her, her blessing of ancient sight repressed or forgotten. Either way, never to gallop Solovey again, or bathe in a cold lake in early autumn, or explore an exotic market picking out whatever item struck her fancy, or travel along a frozen river in the deep, quiet magic of midwinter dawn. Never to learn the truth of her birth, he thought guiltily. Never to see him again. 

“Yes. Perhaps I do.” 

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone cares, the contraceptive plant he brought back is silphium, aka Giant Fennel. It’s not native to Russia and may have been extinct by the 14th century, but you know what? Fuck it. Morozko can make it happen for his girl.
> 
> I can be found on tumblr @the-force-electric


End file.
